Lucetta Mary Alice Starkie

• Missing Since 07/03/1985
• Missing From Walnut Hill, Florida
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 05/25/1934 (91)
• Age 51 years old
• Height and Weight 5'2, 95 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Gray hair, blue eyes. Lucetta's ears are pierced. Her nicknames are Lu and Lucie, and her maiden name is Pauley.

Details of Disappearance

Lucetta was last seen at her residence in Walnut Hill, Florida on July 3, 1985. She was living in the Bay Springs community with Andrew Robert Starkie, her husband of 28 years. She has never been heard from again.

Andrew did not report his wife's disappearance to police. Her sister, Christine Sparks, who lived in West Virginia, reported Lucetta as a missing person on August 31, 1985. Sparks stated Lucetta's marriage had been difficult and she was often on the brink of divorce. She found out Lucetta was missing after she repeatedly tried to call her in August 1985, never got an answer, and finally called one of their neighbors who said Lucetta had disappeared.

Sparks stated that Andrew gave her numerous conflicting stories as to what had happened. On August 31, Andrew told her his wife had left with an unidentified woman in a brown station wagon and he thought she was going to visit her relatives in Maryland and West Virginia. A day later, however, Andrew changed his story and told Sparks he had taken Lucetta to Mississippi in early July and left her somewhere between the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi, and that he had seen her every week since then and had met her on one occasion at a Best Western Motel in Alabama and given her money.

On September 7, Andrew changed his story again and claimed that he came home from work on July 5 to find Lucetta gone and a note from her on a cabinet, saying she had left and would call later. Her car was still there, he said. On September 14, Andrew suggested Lucetta might be visiting one of his aunts in Alabama and attending a family reunion. After Thanksgiving that year, Andrew said he thought Lucetta was in California.

He also told different stories a neighbor. At first he said Lucetta needed to get away and he'd taken her to visit friends in Biloxi, Mississippi. For weeks afterwards, Andrew would call the neighbor every Monday morning and claim he'd seen his wife and she was fine. Sometime later, Andrew told the same neighbor that Lucetta had gone to stay with friends in West Virginia. Still later, he said he'd taken a week off of work and driven to West Virginia to visit his wife, but that she didn't want to see him and he left after half an hour.

When a friend of Lucetta's called her in July after not hearing from her in several weeks, Andrew told her that Lucetta was visiting friends elsewhere in Florida.

The Starkies' marriage was legally dissolved in August 1986, thirteen months after Lucetta's disappearance. Authorities believe she was a victim of violence and his now deceased, although her body has never been located. She worked as a cosmetics salesperson at the time of her disappearance. Her case remains unsolved.